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Thursday, 12 October 2017

The Apprentice: Heartbreak Hotel

It’s week two and this week’s task was ’making money from interior design’. The two groups had to create a bedroom that the Stoke Park hotel could sell to to their guests for a ‘premium price’. They had two days to design, decorate and furnish their rooms with each team receiving a £13,000 budget to devise their masterpiece.

The girls’ project manager this week was Bushra, who’s diplomatic conversation with the rest of the team about their strengths soon turned sour, after she left Sarah-Jayne in charge of the ‘problematic lot’ which consisted of Michaela, Elizabeth and Siobhan. This didn’t go down well with Sarah-Jayne who accused Bushra of putting herself in a ‘good position’ if their design was to fail.

The boys were led by Ross, who quickly appointed James as sub-team leader. Tactically taking Jeff with himself because of his background in mathematics. However, this did not go to plan when Jeff dismissed his role after describing he was in fact creative and ‘not just a numbers guy’, going on to showcase some of his breakdancing moves. None of which, like him contributed anything productive to the task.

Pointlessness was also a common theme in the Girls’ team, because Sarah-Jayne was almost revoked of her title as sub team leader by Elizabeth, who insisted on measuring the bedroom entirely herself. Whilst her antics caused even sour faced Claude to smile she served no purpose. Personally, I don’t even think Elizabeth knew what was happening, particularly when the team found out her measurements were in fact wrong. Who saw that coming eh? There was worst news to come for the harassed subteam as project manager Bushra decided to slash their £13,000 budget to 5,000.

On the boy’s side Ross and company created a mood board to showcase some of the ideas they had for the room. Yet what could have displayed their intentions for their Britain and tourism theme, instead looked like a sorry excuse for ‘modern art’. Bushra also plugged an artistic tinge to their golf theme, describing their extreme close-up of a golf ball wallpaper as “subjective like art”. The majority of her team didn’t see her artistic vision, with Sarah Lynn dubbing it ‘Minimal’. Bushra naturally disagreed, and the golf theme stayed.

James' decision to buy 'high quality furniture' for their British themed room with bright yellow walls (I don't know why either) went better than expected that was until his sub-team managed to spend £10,725 of their £13,000 budget. The girls once again had to obey the wishes of Elizabeth, who insisted on staying to their short budget, undermining the suggestions of the rest of her team. Honestly, I have no idea why Sarah-Jayne didn’t say something at this point, at times I forgot she was even there. Though credit where credits due with the ‘help’ of Elizabeth they managed to meet their budget.

Despite this, their choice of furniture was dismissed by the hotel manager and their own designer, who humorously had to stand on the bed to see himself in the mirror in the girls' obscurely golf themed room. The boys’ team was also critiqued for their unusual choice of colour palette. Sajan credibly tried to explain that they wanted to illustrate that ‘Britain’ is metaphorically the Stoke Park hotel. The Hotel owner and designer didn’t like this though, then going on to questioning the boys’ £750 a night retail price.

After a disaster of a task for both teams, Lord Sugar revealed that he had been given the judgement call of which team won by the hotel. Upon crowning the girls team as the winners, he promptly reminded Bushra that he only ‘disliked their attempt less.'

This left Ross with a decision to make. Harrison once again was quick to fire blame, having little to no screen time this week at all. Both him and James blasted Jeff for essentially not sticking to his role and contributing nothing to the task. Ross regrettably explained that he had to take James with him, because he was the sub-team leader. It was then clear that it was either Jeff or Ross that was going to leave. The decision was an evidently a tough one for Lord Sugar who though choosing to fire Jeff made it clear that he was not happy.

This week was definitely interesting, the boys need to pull themselves together, and remain focused in their task. A candidate for Lord Sugar's investment has yet to emerge.

Other bizarre highlight - Jeff's insistence on reminding anyone with a pair of ears that he has a background in breakdancing